Anna Hazare on Saturday announced a new 15-member team two months after Team Anna was disbanded. He stated he would initiate a nationwide campaign against corruption from Jan 30 next year, which is the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. He said people were misinformed about disbanding of the team as his campaign was never stopped.The team was announced after a meeting with Kiran Bedi, Medha Patkar and some former Team Anna members at Maharashtra Sadan here.The new members are former Director General of Police (Punjab) Shashikant, former IAS officer Avinash Dharmadhikari, Lt Col Brijendra Khokhar, Ran Singh Arya, activist Akshay Kumar and agriculture expert Vishambhar Chaudhary. Hazare also specified that former army chief General (retd) V.K. Singh is not a member of his team, but they were in touch.

09-Nov-2012Business

India's forex reserves dipped by $950.3 million

India's foreign exchange (forex) reserves dipped by $950.3 million to $294.34 billion for the week ended Nov 2 as per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.The reserves increased by $55.6 million to $295.29 billion for the week ended Oct 26. Forex soared up by $359.4 million to $295.23 billion for the week ended Oct 19.The foreign currency assets (FCA) - which is the major component of the forex reserves - went up by $1 billion at $259.45 billion, as the weekly statistical supplement released by the RBI stated.The FCA increased by $86.9 million at $260.46 billion in the previous week. The FCA went up by $351.3 million at $260.37 billion in the previous week. The value of gold reserves though rose by 56.4 million at $28.18 billion and its value had remained unchanged at 28.13 billion since the week ended Oct 12. The reserves had increased by $1.89 billion in the week ended Sep 28.

09-Nov-2012Others

India hopes to get voice samples of 26/11 accused

India has stated that the dates of Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik's visit here is yet to be finalized.It also hopes that it will be able to procure the voice samples of the handlers of the 26/11 terror attack. As per the Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde India asked Pakistan to provide the voice samples of those who had been handling and directing the terrorists during Mumbai attacks. The Pakistan authorities after consultation with their legal department "may come to us with something".India intended to send a National Investigation Agency team to Pakistan to analyze the material evidence collected against 26/11 terror attack accused.

09-Nov-2012Sports

IPL style badminton tournament to be held next year

India's top five players, including Saina Nehwal, will play in the $1 million Indian Badminton League (IBL), which is a six city-based league launched here on Saturday.Besides Saina, Parupalli Kashyap, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa and youngster P.V. will also play in the tournament. They will be bought by the teams in an auction.The cash rich league is scheduled for next year from June 24 to July 11.The IBL is a joint initiative of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and its commercial partner Sporty Solutionz Private Ltd.

09-Nov-2012Business

Action taken against foreign account:Government

The government said that investigation was on to gather information and the required action has been initiated under the Income Tax Act but names of people and companies who have accounts in Switzerland provided by France were not revealed. The finance ministry stated in a press release that the government analysed the information and further action would be taken on case-to-case basis.The statement stated that the foreign tax authorities had been contacted to gather more information about "reported account holders".

09-Nov-2012Entertainment

Kolkata film fest starts amid starry night

Glamour and politics merged together as Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan joined in with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to inaugurate the 18th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) at Kolkata on Saturday.Bachchan, Shah Rukh and Banerjee lit the ceremonial lamp as veterans from Bengali cinema followed suit.Bollywood stars Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma, Mithun Chakrabarty and Tollywood stars, delegates from India and abroad as well the prominent personalities of the culture-loving city were at the Netaji Indoor Stadium to attend the opening of KIFF, which is the second oldest international film festival of India.

09-Nov-2012Science and Technology

Aakash' maker an Indian American professor Forbes' 15 classroom revolutionaries

The person behind India's low-cost Aakash tablet and an Indian American professor are among the Forbes 15 "classroom revolutionaries" involved in innovative technologies to reinvent education for students and teachers globally.Suneet Singh Tuli, the CEO of Datawind, the maker of Aakash, and Massachusettes Institute of Technology professor Anant Agarwal are listed among the education innovators. Tuli's vision was the world's cheapest tablet r Aakash. Datawind has "millions" of orders pending for the 35 dollar Aakash tablet. Tuli stated that "I don't care about creating the iPad killer. I care about the 3 billion people who can afford this device".Agarwal, a professor of computer science at MIT is also the President of edX, which is a recent combined online courses of Harvard, MIT, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas. 400,000 are enrolled in the education programme at present.

09-Nov-2012Others

Kejriwal guns puts focus on Swiss bank account holders

Activist-politician Arvind Kejriwal blamed industrialists Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal, Congress MP Annu Tandon and many other Indians of holding money in Swiss banks.The concerned persons whose names were taken denied this. The BJP on the other hand asked for investigation and the CPI-M stated that names of individuals with illegal foreign bank accounts should be disclosed. It was also alleged that HSBC Bank was facilitating money laundering and so Kejriwal demanded the arrest of its top officials closure of its operations in India.Among his six demands is the raid by the government on 700 odd people with Swiss bank accounts. Kejriwal also said that the Indian government, was not keen on unearthing black money stashed in Swiss banks.

09-Nov-2012Business

Britain snaps aid to India

Britain made an announcement that it was removing the development aid to India "with immediate effect".The amount is 280 million pounds a year aid to India.The ongoing programmes will reach completion by 2015 "as planned". No new programmes will be signed and now Britain will opt for"skills sharing" with India. The new programmes will mean "the form of technical assistance, sharing UK expertise in trade, investment, skills and health."

09-Nov-2012Business

SC asks for fresh report on GM crops

The interim report on genetically modified crops was referred back to the technical expert committee incorporating all objections from the central government and industry by the Supreme Court and a final report within six weeks was also sought.The central government on Friday refused to accept the Supreme Court's suggestion to have renowned agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan on the technical expert committee (TEC) on genetically modified crops.Then the apex court bench of Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhayay appointed another eminent scientist R.S. Paroda to the committee in place of V.L. Chopra who wanted to leave the committee on health grounds.

09-Nov-2012Entertainment

'Dabangg 2' teaser released on Facebook

The much-awaited look of "Dabangg 2" was released on Salman Khan's official Facebook page and the star feels that this will suit the new generation which follows movie news on new media. Salman's Facebook profile has got 6.8 million. He said they will be using traditional media as well for promotions. Directed by Arbaaz Khan, "Dabangg 2" is a sequel to 2010 blockbuster "Dabangg" and has Sonakshi Sinha and Deepak Dobriyal as well in the star cast. The movie will release on Dec 21.The 10-second-teaser, shows Salman with his trademark shades. While another teaser, which will also be released on Facebook.com/BeingSalmanKhan on Nov 10, will give the viewers a sneak peak into the movie.

09-Nov-2012Sports

Bhupathi-Bopanna in the semis of World Tour Finals

Rohan Bopanna and Mahesh Bhupathi reached the doubles semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals, defeating higher-ranked pair of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor.The World No.5 pair got the better of the second-ranked team 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 10-5 in an exciting ﻿Group B match at O2 arena here.The duo had lost their opening match to Wimbledon champions Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen before getting back in the second against Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau. Bhupathi-Bopanna qualified as the runner-up team from Group B and face the winners of Group A in the last four.

Research-In-Motion (RIM) has come up with a special festive offer. On the purchase of the new BlackBerry Curve 9220 or Curve 9320, the customers will get free BBM service for the next one year. They will have to opt for a new Airtel or Vodafone connection. Airtel subscribers will have to text "BBM" to 543210 for activating the free BlackBerry Messenger service. Vodafone subscribers will have their BlackBerry services automatically activated within 48 hours after the phone is started with the SIM for the first time. This offer would be available till December 9.